


eschara

by ninata



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Alcoholism, Alternate Canon, Alternate to "Questioning Beliefs" in Act 3, Isabela/Fenris mentioned, M/M, Misunderstandings, Past Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-11
Updated: 2015-10-11
Packaged: 2018-04-25 20:09:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4974712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninata/pseuds/ninata
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What is it like? To have never felt chains dig into your skin? To have known the light of the sun since the day you were born?</p>
            </blockquote>





	eschara

Callouses. His hands have callouses. Both hands, but the ones on his right hand are worse.

The other keeps his scars tucked under clothing, under armor. The other doesn’t long for touch, doesn’t long for callouses and doesn’t long for the right hand or the left.

“You need to take care of yourself,” Hawke says, and Fenris holds onto the neck of a bottle of wine like it’s a great friend of his. Hawke’s eyebrows knit together, crochet hairs that look like they’d make a nice sweater, Fenris thinks, vague under the haze of alcohol. “Drinking like this all the time, shutting all the others out-- we get worried, you know.”

Everyone always worries, eyebrows knotted up like Hawke’s, deep frowns and sad looks and they all chide him for living in the conditions he does, doing the things he does. When Fenris is like this he’s learned not to let anyone see. Thinking he could be free is silly, even in freedom. He hides away like he always did.

...But, of course, Hawke finds him. Hawke seeks him out, in fact. Hawke has some kind of sixth sense for the lot of them, all his comrades. Hawke’s calloused hands cross so that they hold onto the opposite arm, elbows bent, his lips pulled taut and frowning away. Fenris could find this laughable if he liked laughing.

“You can leave, you know.” Fenris slurs, lyrium branded fingers gesturing towards the man in front of him. “Don’t you have something to do?”

“You have more priority over doing some favor for a random townsperson.” He says. Fenris does laugh, this time. He isn’t sure why. He takes another drink. It tastes like ashes. “You should stop.”

When you’re free, you don’t really know you’re free. You think you are, and you want to be. You don’t want to stay afraid, you don’t want to go back to that. But once a slave, always a slave, so they say.

Fenris should know he’s free. He knows Danarius can never come back, that he’s dead, now. That Fenris was the one that held the beating heart in his hand and squeezed it ‘til it burst. The deed is done, it’s all over, his sister ran far away and Fenris has no right to the dread that clouds his body.

Some nights, he remembers. He remembers the crack of the whip, he remembers the horrible, raw feeling of starvation that faded to numbness; he remembers times when he didn’t even think, when he simply existed in fear and flinched at the slightest movement; he remembers bruising touches and blood and vomit, knowing screaming can’t do anything, that even with the power he’d been given he could never do a damn thing against Danarius.

When you kick an animal enough, it stops resisting. It lies there, taking whatever pain comes its way. He was like that for so long.

Fenris is dizzy, full of painful memories. He drinks to drown them out, to rid himself of that buzzing in his head, but of course _that_ doesn’t do much for dizziness.

In front of him is that man, that blasted man that insisted Fenris was more than hatred. That man with calloused hands and soft eyes and obnoxiously loud laughter. Fenris loathes this man, loathes that kindness he gives so freely. Loathes that Hawke never favors one person over the other. Not Fenris.

“Why are you here?” He asks, because the words he wants to say are a lump in his stomach.

Hawke goes and sits in the chair next to him, plopping himself down-- he carries himself with weight, carelessly, Hawke does. Fenris’s bottle is empty, and he sets it down on the table before pulling another over. It too is, sadly, empty.

“Isabela sent me.” He says, and Fenris already regrets asking. “She says you’ve been worrying her.”

“ _Worrying_ her?” Fenris spits. Isabela should know to hold her tongue. He asks _one thing_ of her and of _course_ she starts treating him like a burden...Blabbing about his problems to Hawke, of all people. He was wrong to think that Hawke came over for his own reasons.

Isabela’s like Fenris. She understands. She doesn’t ask questions. A woman’s touch is surprisingly comforting, and she never tries to push any sort of feelings or obligations on him. It’s easy.

Yet here she is, sending Hawke over, making him ask questions. Fenris needs more wine.

“She says you’re angry-- angrier than usual! Didn’t think it was possible.” Hawke offers a smile. Fenris doesn’t want it. “After that fight with Danarius, I’d have thought you’d feel a little better. You wouldn’t get into this...rut.”

“You were wrong, then.” He finally finds a bottle with something in it, draining its contents. “In the end...I don’t feel any freer. I have nothing left, here-- Vanaria’s gone, Danarius is dead...what is there for me to do anymore?”

“Plenty! We’ll need your help taking down the Knight Commander. She won’t go without causing a big stink. Even a mage-hating elf like you can see she’s up to nothing good. When the time comes, your aid will lead us to victory.”

_Of course. That’s it, isn’t it?_

“...What?”

Ah. Fenris said it aloud.

He glares at Hawke, who sports some comical expression of confusion. Fenris hates it. He hates it, hates it, hates it. “Is that all I am? A weapon?” He may as well go ahead and say it. He wanted to.

“I...no, that isn’t what I meant.” Hawke splutters.

“What is it, then? I’m just handy?”

“How much have you drank?”

“What does it matter?!”

“Fenris, please. You know you’re my friend. One of the closest I’ve ever had! You’ll always be more than someone to rely on in a fight, you...Dammit, I…”

Is it satisfying? Seeing Hawke uncomfortable, at a loss for words. Fenris doesn’t know. He knows he’s angry, and that’s about it.

It’s been six years, and Fenris would’ve thought he’d gotten over it by now. This pathetic infatuation with Hawke, the man who’s decisive in a tough situation and in battle but can’t appear to make up his mind with romance. Hawke is infuriating, how he never expects anything, how he never pushes himself onto Fenris, how even after kissing Hawke all that time ago Hawke never took it anywhere. It’s ridiculous, to be upset about this now, to want Hawke to fix his problems and make Fenris feel less alone and purposeless but he does, he’s drunk, and he’ll hate himself for being so unreasonable tomorrow.

Calloused hands twist in Hawke’s lap. Fenris hates those hands, hates this man, hates how he makes him feel and how he comes here expecting to have some bloody heart-to-heart with Fenris and solve everything in time to go home and play with his mabari. Fenris sets his bottle down, shaking with a rage he doesn’t want to entertain.

“You say these things...you always say these things. Always the amicable one, joking and flirting with everyone you meet...no person more ‘close’ than the last...it’s maddening! You never speak of us, you won’t let me be closer but you refuse to let go! I can’t, I can’t stand it! You’re a pathetic, weak man whose only strength is swinging a sword around and ordering his soldiers around!” Fenris gestures again, Hawke’s face drawn into a frown that’s different from before. Less worried. More insulted. Like a petulant little child… “If you didn’t want me, then you should’ve said it. I’ve been hanging around like a fool, hoping for some kind of indication! I thought that killing Danarius would make me less dependent, or, or that you’d finally make some move, but you’ve done nothing! What do you want?! What do you _want_ from me?!”

All this time, and Fenris isn’t sure if Hawke was being polite or if he’s, what, some embarrassed maiden, shying from his affections. Fenris was never one to appreciate subtlety, nor a complete lack of reciprocation other than a few heated kisses. What does Fenris want? He wants everything from Hawke, everything he was denied, everything he came to think may exist between two people who love each other. He hates that he loves him even still and hates that it’s only when he’s drunk that he can yell at him properly and that he’ll have to pay for it when he’s sober.

Hawke’s face is red in the dim light of lanterns and candles.

“I…” He clears his throat. “I want you...to stay with me.”

“To fight?” Fenris says with venom.

“I want you to stay by my side, Fenris. I...I didn’t know what to do, those three years ago. Some Champion I am. I didn’t know what to think of...us. Of being with a man, I mean. It took time to come to terms with, and when I did, it appeared you and Isabela had become involved. I didn’t think you’d…” Hawke takes a calloused hand, wiping it into his hairline. “You’d have waited around for me to catch up. It wasn’t until recently Isabela heard me speaking to Varric, pulled me aside to urge me to confront you. I didn’t…I wasn’t sure that…”

Fenris stares at him, disbelief invading his foggy mind. _A misunderstanding? That simple?_

“I care for you, Fenris. I don’t want to doubt myself anymore, and I don’t want to cause you anymore grief. I just--”

He’s drunk. That’s Fenris’s excuse for being so impulsive. Hands reach forward, fingers digging into Hawke’s short hair. Fenris lunges, his chair wobbling as he captures those lips with his own.

Hawke’s hands hover, settling on the other’s waist and cheek. Fenris wants to erase the pain from his head, doesn’t want to wake up shaking, if only for a day. Fenris wants to know what this love is, wants to know if any tales woven speak any truth, to know if the voice that taught him how to read sounds just as pleasant in the mornings between pillows. Pathetic, weak thoughts, vulnerable thoughts, thoughts he never would’ve dreamed of entertaining until he met Hawke.

One kiss becomes a dozen, warmth blossoming from Fenris’s chest and coursing through his body. It’s strange, how different it feels from lyrium. He never would’ve guessed that the scratch of a beard would feel nice. Perhaps he _is_ too drunk.

Questions fly through the air between kisses.

“Aren’t you angry?”

“Incredibly so.”

“Don’t you care what the others think?”

“Do you?”

“I couldn’t possibly.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I’m an idiot, obviously.”

“You are.”

It’s like eating after starving, frenzied and desperate. Six years, six years of this song and dance and Fenris is almost sure it’s over. His chair goes tumbling, he’s closer than he could’ve ever asked for.

“Do you love me?” Fenris asks, and even now he expects the worst.

“I love you. And I do hope this isn’t just because of the alcohol.” Hawke laughs, breath brushing over Fenris’s features.

“Never. I love you, I always have loved you.”

“Always?” Hawke’s words are a ghost of a whisper, and before Fenris can answer a kiss is taken from him. It was always Hawke’s to take. He returns the favor.

The two stay tangled in each other, lips and bodies to hands that lead to Fenris’s quarters and bodies again.

And Fenris wonders if this, perhaps, is what freedom feels like.

If this is what happiness feels like.

**Author's Note:**

> i tried to write this more seriously than most of my work, but in the end, it still comes out strangely...it's hard not to put something funny in, but i do my best. ive been writing all sorts of different series lately, haven't i? jeez.  
> expect more dragon age eventually, i havent gotten through inquisition yet but we'll see if i get inspired from that. otherwise, you'll be seeing my dumbass warden with zevran at some point...


End file.
